The Domino Effect as a model of Causality+

The proverbial Domo Effect provides an interesting insight and poses questions about the nature of Causality in general and the definition of cause and effect in particular.

What is the cause of flooring a row of dominoes? The straightforward answer would be that it is an initial sideways impact on the first domino. But from the second domino’s point of view, it is the tipping over of the first domino. The same argument applies to the rest of the row of dominoes, whatever their number. The fall of each domino is both cause and effect. The Domino Effect is of course just a conveniently illustrative example of Chain Reaction.

Nuclear and chemical reactions are what most people associate with chain reactions. They are characterised by fast amplification of energy followed by fast attenuation. The point is that in a chain reaction process the attenuation never reaches zero levels of energy and in that sense, a chain reaction never ends. The last domino to fall does change the method of the energy transfer but is not the end of the chain. The way I see it every effect turns into a cause which in turn turns into effect ad infinitum. The domino effect is perhaps the best analogy for describing the nature of causality..